Amazon Officially Picked These Two Cities for Their “HQ2”

After a highly publicized search, Amazon finally decided on a location for its second company headquarters.

Two locations, actually—Long Island City in Queens, and Arlington, Virginia. Both cities are part of major metropolitan areas: New York City and Washington, D.C., respectively. Each site will have at least 25,000 employees.

“We are excited to build new headquarters in New York City and Northern Virginia,” Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said in a statement. “These two locations will allow us to attract world-class talent that will help us to continue inventing for customers for years to come. The team did a great job selecting these sites, and we look forward to becoming an even bigger part of these communities.”

A third, smaller location of 5,000 workers will also open in Nashville, Tennessee. Amazon’s calling it their “Center of Excellence,” and it will handle “customer fulfillment, transportation, supply chain, and other similar activities.”

Amazon will receive performance-based incentives from New York State totaling $1.525 billion for their LIC headquarters.

“When I took office, I said we would build a new New York State—one that is fiscally responsible and fosters a business climate that is attractive to growing companies and the industries of tomorrow,” New York governor Andrew Cuomo said in a statement. “...with Amazon committing to expand its headquarters in Long Island City, New York can proudly say that we have attracted one of the largest, most competitive economic development investments in U.S. history.”

This ends a 14-month hunt for Amazon’s perfect “HQ2,” which saw about 240 cities submit bids. This January, that list was narrowed to 20. It’s a project that was met with both excitement, with players considering the influx of jobs, economic growth potential, and the chance to become a tech hub, and wariness. Would the arrival of behemoth Amazon, where the average wage is $150,000, cause the cost of living to drastically rise for others? The company’s first HQ, downtown Seattle, has seen home prices skyrocket and traffic become increasingly clogged. While Amazon considered these logistics in their search for a new center, the final impact on a city can be hard to predict.